Server Hardisk Failure on 21st (Mon) Jan 2008

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This is the first time I am experiencing this. Yeah…my server hard disk failed on the morning of 21st Jan 2008 while I was doing some backuping work.

Yes, I have foreseen the hardisk to fail. cPanel software that I use for my server has sent me two warning on 18th Jan 2008 (Friday) and 20th Jan 2008 (Sunday).

I contacted my server provider a day before I received the warning, as my httpd service couldn’t be started. It was some conflicts between my SSL certificate and the httpd service. It seems that my SSL certificate has corrupted. Most probably is due to the hardisk problem already, but my provider checked and said they found no error. So I just leave it apart.

Of course, after receiving the cPanel warning, I contacted them again and the advice is to backup my files “IMMEDIATELY”. Yes, one shouldn’t delay any further when this warning comes up.

I am not experience enough to know how to backup my entire server effectively. The backup feature in WHM doesn’t seem to work to my understanding. So on Sunday night, I backup manually the database and home directory of two of my most important sites: ShaShinKi.com and PentaxWorld.com.

On Monday morning, I am on the way to backup more of the other sites that I have on the server…too bad I was not in time to grab them all. 🙁

I lost an important site of mine…CaptureSG.com. Though the site is very quiet and not growing as what I have hoped for, but there are some very dedicated members that still help out in the site. I must say I am sorry not being able to safeguard the data well… 🙁

On Monday morning, my database suddenly can’t be accessed. I restarted mySQL but failed. Then I tried restarting httpd, failed again. Now both database and http can’t be accessed. FTP still working fine, and I manage to copy some other backup of ECMalaysia and BlogMalaysia. However, their database are gone (for the better future I believe).

To be continue…